Meeka Gold is in the home stretch to its major pre-feasibility study for the 1.1Moz Murchison gold project, kicking off a new round of drilling at the St Anne’s and Turnberry prospects.

The high priority drilling will target extensions to high grade results at St Anne’s, where no mineral resource has been completed to date, and on the western flank at the 610,000oz Turnberry deposit, chasing up significant gold strikes outside the current resource estimate.

Previous results at St Anne’s have included ripper results like 24m at 4.81g/t from 68m (including 4m at 20.3g/t) and 36m at 1.02g/t from 24m (including 8m at 2.35g/t).

Meanwhile, drilling outside the resource at Turnberry has previously delivered 16m at 6.67g/t from 20m (including 4m at 24.1g/t), 29m at 1.95g/t from 32m and 21m at 2.28g/t gold from 100m.

More discoveries like that and Meeka’s (ASX:MEK) drilling campaign could have a positive impact on the PFS, which is scheduled for delivery in September this year, after the return of assay results from the current program in July.

A scoping study last December gave the project, last mined by Doray Minerals before its sale to Meeka at the start of last year, a very attractive NPV and IRR of $124m and 46% respectively.

The mine would generate pre-tax undiscounted cash flow of $182m at a $2400/oz gold price, with life of mine EBITDA of $457m from production of 422,000oz of gold over eight years at all in sustaining costs of $1655/oz.

Mineralisation to be included in new study

Meeka managing director Tim Davidson said existing drilling showed the company’s high confidence targets were looking good in its quest to add ounces to the WA gold mine.

“We are returning to the Murchison project to drill out a number of advanced high priority targets that sit outside the Mineral Resource. Existing drilling demonstrates these high confidence targets have good geological and grade continuity,” he said.

“We are targeting extensions at both strike and depth and aim to bring them into the next Mineral Resource update.

“The team is also advancing the Pre-feasibility Study as anticipated, which will be finalised in the September 2022 quarter. Shallow oxide mineralisation added to the Mineral Resource through this drilling will further enhance the robust outcomes of our December 2021 Scoping Study and will be included in the Prefeasibility Study as appropriate.”

Meeka, which has seen its shares climb 60% year to date, is also waiting on assays from 16,000m of drilling at its exciting rare earths discovery at Circle Valley near Esperance in WA’s south.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Meeka Gold, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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